Along Mexico’s Pacific coast, flooding from Hurricane John left devastated towns and 17 dead

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This article was published 30/09/2024 (734 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

COYUCA DE BENITEZ, Mexico (AP) — Along Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, floodwaters receded Monday, leaving behind devastated towns and 17 dead, after John struck the coast once as a hurricane and again as tropical storm last week.

Desperate residents in the town of Coyuca de Benitez, about 35 miles west of the resort city of Acapulco, organized volunteers to go to outlying areas to burn the bloated bodies of farm animals that drowned.

The carcasses could become a health risk, so teams of townspeople set out with cans of diesel to help them in their grim work.

The Mexican army began delivering aid packages to families in the town that were hit last year by Hurricane Otis and then last week — twice — by John.

Some are becoming so tired of the repeated hurricane impacts every year they have almost given up.

“I don’t want to buy anything anymore, if this is going to continue happening every year,” said Yahaira García Marín, 32, as she began to clear out her shattered house in Coyuca de Benitez. Around her, little was left except the shoulder-high brown marks on the wall showing where the water reached.

García Marín had to flee in the night last week with her 80-year-old grandmother. “It was terrible, we had to grab what little we had and get out,” she recalled.

Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — whose last day in office was Monday — has not visited the disaster zone, but he confirmed Sunday that 15 people had died. Two more people were reported dead by authorities in the state of Oaxaca, which borders Guerrero to the east.

Officials in Guerrero state, where both Coyuca and Acapulco are located, said more than 3 feet of rain (95 centimeters) had fallen in the region between Sept. 23 when John made landfall to the east of Acapulco as a Category 3 hurricane, and Friday, when the rejuvenated Tropical Storm John came ashore again to the west of Coyuca.

That meant the era got the equivalent of about 80% of the rain it would normally expect to see in a year, in just four or five days.

The rain also set off landslides that collapsed houses and blocked roads in the mountainous terrain behind the coast.